Govinda voters change tracks over railway infrastructure

Arindam Saha, TNNDec 11, 2005, 12.23am IST

MUMBAI: VIRAR ka chokra Govinda, and dethroned Bihar strongman Laloo Prasad Yadav were the common targets for the crowd of agitators squating on the Western Railway tracks since early morning here on Saturday.

A public agitation against Mumbai's chronic railway infrastructure on the western suburb might have cost the city a lot of money in lost business but it managed to muster popular support from the public.

It was a agitation of a different kind. No customary slogans, no stone pelting at the police who had turned up at various stations between Virar and Borivali. Surprisingly, the men in uniform were also extending somekind of solidarity to the agitators.

For Govinda the wheel has certainly turned a full circle. After winning a landslide verdict in the last Lok Sabha election against the former petroleum minister Ram Naik, he is now grappling with an angry constituency bearing the brunt of a tumbling railway system, from Virar to Andheri and beyond.